


Haunted

by zinjadu



Series: And not to yield [5]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Heavy Angst, Obsessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26086627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: After Horizon, Kaidan spirals, obsesses, turns himself inside out about what he should have done.  Because he just can't let go.  Or those grey eyes, eyes familiar and yet not, won't let him go.Kaidan interlude spanning ME2 to the very start of ME3.  Can be read by itself without the rest of the series.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Shepard
Series: And not to yield [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604602
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Haunted

First thing he does is set up a feed. Simple queries and bots, nothing much, with filters to keep out the shit. Anderson stonewalls him. Or is still stonewalling him. Nothing comes through official Alliance channels either way, and Kaidan reaches out to her old friends, Jae-min Ahn and Miles Townsend. Legends in their own right, but they have nothing for him. Here and then gone sightings. Jae just misses her on Omega, Miles is two steps behind on Illium.

Zahra Shepard never could sit still for long.

The news trickles in, and Kaidan finds himself hanging on every blurb and bulletin. He relaxes the filters and reads about personal sightings, conspiracy theories, anything, everything that has to do with her. To give him some clue if she is who she was, or if—he doesn’t know what comes after the  _ if _ , just that it wouldn’t be good. 

It’s hard to get a picture of what her aim is.

The SR-2, because he can’t think of it as the Normandy. The Normany was where they’d all stay up late swapping stories about stupid childhood stunts, where they ate dinner around a too small table, where he’d met a woman with eyes the color of the Pacific in winter. A woman with a wild heart. The Normandy was where he’d lost her, too. Down with the ship. If she had ever been in that woman in the first place.

Deep cover? No, he promised himself he wouldn’t go down that rabbit hole.

Just like he promised himself he wouldn’t obsess, yet here he is, reading reports until his eyes ache and a migraine pulses behind his eyes. His stomach rolls around, ready to give up his dinner, and he turns the datapad over and slings his arm over his eyes. The dark doesn’t help as much as he wants it to, because it's so easy to see her face. Sharp cheekbones and prominent nose cut by red lines under the skin. The gaunt, shorn picture of her overlays the fuller, warmer memory he had called to mind time after time after time.

Could the living haunt you, he wonders.

He certainly feels haunted. Her grey eyes follow him from broadcasted news bursts, and the pictures of her change. Her skin heals, her hair grows out into that thick mass of blackness that he had ached to touch. Kaidan shuts it all down. Every last feed, every last blog. Tells her old friends to stop trying, or at least don’t keep him updated with their attempts to track her down. 

She’s never going to write back, he realizes eventually.

Moved on. Well, he’d done it, hadn’t he? Taken her to task, but for a second. For one, one precious second, he had held her in his arms again, and oh god, how could she  _ smell _ the same? Ozone and gun oil. Their fields had sparked, hers always that wild, wild corona, and he had nearly grounded her out by reflex. Let her mass effect field bleed out through his and away. Go with her? He should have dragged her away, done something,  _ anything _ to keep her from going back to Cerberus.

His fault. His fault as much as anything else. For giving up, for letting her go.

There’s no fanfare when she comes back through the Omega-4 relay. The Collector attacks stop, fizzle out, but she stays away from the Alliance like a wary street dog. He hadn’t even known she was hitting the relay, and all of a sudden she’s back. How long had it been since Horizon? A few months, that’s all. It feels like years as he sits in his officer’s berth and contemplates the  _ mezuzah _ that he still carries around like a talisman. 

He could take long service leave. Just get up and go. Go to her.

Hat in hand, heart on a plate.  _ I’m sorry _ , sits on his tongue until another report comes in. Bahak. Bahak is  _ gone _ . The bots come back to life with a vengeance, and he devours every report. Unsubstantiated rumors circle every feed, even the official ones, but he shuts off the commentary. For once, he tries to drown out all the voices that would pull him one way or another and he watches  _ her _ . He stares into those grey eyes as they stare out of a sharp, underfed face. He sees the arc of blue in them.

Zahra Shepard would never let herself be taken in unless she allowed it.

The restraints would mean nothing except there’s a biotic damper around her neck. Kaidan touches his own neck in remembrance of one of the bad days at BaAT and grimaces. She had to have allowed that much, she had to have. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. His parents, his friends, his colleagues try to ask questions, but he doesn’t answer. Hard to know what to say to someone else, when his only answer is that he should have been there. Should have been right there beside her so she wouldn’t have had to do that alone. Because she’s alone now.

Six months. They call him to testify as a character witness after holding her for six months.

Sorting fact from fiction has never been so hard, but he can only be a witness to what he did see. And it couldn’t have all been an act. He tells himself that over and over and over, until he half believes it, and is still half afraid to believe it. His voice is steady on the stand, and out the doors—

“Commander,” her voice breaks through every last wall he’s built and he’s right back on Horizon, except she’s different all over again. Instead of chock full of wires and shorn, her cheeks are maybe a bit fuller and her hair is bundled up. She’d grown it out while they had her under lock and key.

“Major, actually,” he says, trying to keep his voice from breaking. There’s a tense moment as the hulking guard asks a few questions, but she turns, those grey eyes an ocean he could drown in.

“It’s good to see you, Kaidan.”

The  _ mezuzah _ burns a hole in his pocket. Doesn’t know why he brought it with him until just now. Until he sees her and wants to put it in her hand, curl her fingers around it, and if she knows what it is, if she recognizes it then he’ll know. He’ll know it's her. That it’s always been her, and he’s been an idiot. He can eat that crow. Would eat that crow a thousand thousand times over if only he could make himself  _ move _ .

But his feet are stuck to the floor and his heart is a leaden lump in his chest.

And when the Reapers come, because they’d both always known they’d come, he runs for the SR-2 and orders the crew to make for Alliance HQ and to find her. 

He’s not leaving her behind again. At least not until he gets some answers. Answers and maybe enough courage to put it all on the line again. Because this time, this time he doesn’t think there’s a way out. If there ever was.


End file.
